Strikes and Massage
Forged in fire, tempered in water. The November Intensive at the Systema Academy, Thursday 12 to Sunday 15 November 2026.
This year we're putting striking and massage together. Every session works both. You learn to take a strike and let the tension go, to feel where tension sits in a body, and to strike so it goes in.
I have heard Mikhail say that eighty percent of Systema is massage. A strike and a massage are after the same thing: finding the tension in a person and helping them let it go.
What we will work on
- Receiving strikes: breathing, staying relaxed, and clearing what a strike leaves behind.
- Delivering strikes: structure, the fist, and the heavy strike.
- Massage: working with tension, and recovery after hard training.
- Sauna and cold dousing to start each day.
- Free work to bring it together.
Each Day
- Thursday 12 November: arrive from 4pm, 2 hours of evening training then the sauna.
- Friday 13 and Saturday 14 November: morning sauna, then training roughly 10am to 4pm. Evenings free to relax.
- Sunday 15 November: morning sauna, finish by 2pm.
Prices
- Early bird £295, until Sunday 18 October.
- From 19 October, £345.
- Join Friday to Sunday on Zoom, £50.
Staying at the Academy
- £25 a night including breakfast and the sauna.
- Bring a four season sleeping bag, a sleeping mat and ear plugs. Sleeping bags can be loaned if you ask.
Where
- Systema Academy, Montecello Farm, Devizes Road, Potterne, Devizes SN10 5LN.